I’m getting pumped for starting the University of Minnesota’s Coding Bootcamp

Four more days until the new training starts and I think I have stuff pretty much ready. There’s always more you can do of course but I’ve got an early start. One of the tools I’m using is this personal website that has served various purposes through the years. My Butturff sites are among the oldest I have own continuously since at least pre-2004. A lot’s changed in twenty years. Initially what I was doing would be called Web 1.0 using Microsoft Frontpage. I think one of the hallmarks of Web 2.0 was the arrival of content management systems of which WorldPress has proven a big success. I’ve tried others but this is the one I tend to concentrate on and will probably do some freelance work on in the future.

I did a year of training with Riverland Technical College in Austin Minnesota starting back in 2020. I do self educate a lot but I think it is beneficial to have a formal schedule to work by in a lot of things. I’m big believer in being proactive on training. I’ve been thrown into situations with inadequate training and left to sink or swim in the past and i did opt to swim but I have confidence in the University of Minnesota. I think this could be very important in terms of development skills.

In terms of this website I’m basically setting up subdomains like having a spiral notebook for several topics. Just the process of creating the posts on each is a great way to reinforce the memory. Simply hearing it in a lecture has always been a good way for me to remember things which is why I like them but I think to thoroughly learn it does take something more. On average most people have to repeated something about eight times to commit it to intermediate and then long term memory. Then you do have to use it so having something to review and brush up with periodically really shores up the process of becoming expert in something.

As an undergraduate I did some of this via tutoring at Rochester Community College. One of the first electives I took was a class on how to study taught by a man whose name I cannot recall but who I do recall had a PhD. It had a lot to do with organization but it also had a lot to do with how memory works and tools for that. I then subsequently was a paid tutor for the college and I shared this information with a large number of students over a two year period. This had the effect of making it and inherent element or systemic element in my own approach as I further developed refinements on my own. I continued using it right up into graduate school. I like to think that at this point thirty years later I’m a fairly advanced practitioner.

So as a tool for reinforcing memory it’s my strategy to use visual cues and short essay reading to continue the process. Writing notes on something is an intermediate step to putting something into long term memory. In my personal study habits I’ve long since migrated from hand written notes, to typed records, and finally to what I think will eventually become not just web notes but probably blockchain notes. A part of the reason I’m setting up my site here this way is the thought that will SEO it might prove useful for others down the road. That’s why I’m making it an open source resource. Something I’ll keep reviewing and searching over time as an aspect of website development. Content development and structural refinements in terms of how it’s laid out.

I do suspect that for a personal resume oriented site it will be really pretty large in time. Hence I keep the main site clutter free by making use of subdomains. That way by specializing each one into a different topic I’m free to develop an extensive number of post. I can easily do thirty to fifty in a session when it comes to terminology and ideas. That’s the reason for the structure and I do expect it’s going to evolve and get further refined over time.

Currently I’m putting in a large image with a term or idea on it. Straight up titling/text. That’s a visual cue that then gives way to the actual notes. I hypothesize these posts will work a lot like flashcards and foster improved visual memorization. I’ve always been a visual think myself so I find it satisfying to work on but we’ll see how effective it is long terms.

As I’m thinking about it I sort of regret not going into education and wish I’d had better advice and role models when I was younger. It’s probably one area where the death of my father in 1970 at the age of twenty-five continues to reverberate. Mom eventually remarried to a man from Appalachia which if you are not familiar with the region is demographically one of the poorest areas in the United States. He never graduate from K-12 and only got his GED in the Marine Corps. He was kind of a hard man to get along with in a lot of ways but eventually after I grew up and saw what I became he apologized for a lot of things. It’s entirely possible without that influence I might have been on trajetory to the sciences. I did also grow up in an atmosphere with doctors at the Mayo Clinic where my mom worked. I memorized a lot of stuff inspired by them.

I’m not one to blame things on others though I made my choices but now at fifty-six I’m making some more. I really want to become an expert in this new field just as I wish I had say in the medical area. I did become an expert in the methodolgy and historiography of American History in college though after I took the course in study skills. Like my Step-Father I dropped out of high school but I did graduate at age nineteen. I dropped out and went to work much as Kelly had. I almost joined the Marines right before Operation Desert Storm. I was only turned down on account of a pin my ankle. I think I could have done it but that’s another course in life I might have taken but didn’t. I also have some regret about that as I have a lot of respect for veterans. Even though my Step-Father really wasn’t a very good influence much of the time he did instill some discipline. He also inspired rebellion.

I think if you approach something with the intent of making an art out of it then life experiences matter and that is one thing I have gotten however inadvertently: diversification of experience. There is much more to the story. I went from a high school dropout who went to work early and wound up in janitorial work like my stepfather to going to college and eventually even getting involved in politics.

I met a lot of interesting folks there. Senator John Kerry comes to mind back before he ran for president in 2004. Senator Paul Wellstone is another person I met before he became a US Senator. His untimely death in the plane crash with his wife and daughter is what inspired me to get involved as a volunteer in politics and to shift away from the Republican Party. I held a fairly high ranking position for a time but I think in a lot of ways I did still lack mentorship when it would have mattered. I sat on a committee that met in St. Paul and I proposed that the DFL consider exploring the use of a new thing one what we now call Web 2.0: social media. Myself and another man who was a professor spoke and got the measure passed and it was adopted by the party. It made the DFL an early adopter of it as a form of outreach. I’m still interested in politics but haven’t been involved for a long time. I’m on the autism spectrum and it limited my ability to articulate verbally despite a high IQ. It’s another thing I’ve worked to overcome. You never know I might get involved again. I’m not sure which party I’d affiliate with in the future by the way. The DFL is certainly associated with traditional liberalism. Right now the Republican Party has gone too far afield in far right ideology and I don’t see much prospect for it improving. My own views are actually mixed. I’ve subscribed wholly to one of the American ideologies that defines our politial discourse currently. The philsophy I settled upon is Left Libertarian but really more one of my own creation to a large extent. I see value in both conservatism and classical liberalism. Provided the basis of decisions is rooted in the precepts of liberty of the indivdual. Liberty defined as civil rights that are widely enjoyed by the electorate. Restricting voting or other civil liberties is the wrong direction. Of course definicit spending endless fortunes is also the wrong direction. So progressive socially fiscally conservative more out of necessity give our current circumstanced in the world. It doesn’t have to be convoluted or complex.

First things first though. The matter at hand is becoming a full stack developer and laying the foundations over the next six months. As I build this site out and refine others I will further refine the model and try to build something that has a greater persistence over time. Hopefully something where others will find it has utility. In recent years I succeded to a degree working in management in the retail sales sphere as a manager. I think it helped to develop my business acumen. I’ve been interested in that too. It is a concern when one goes in two many directions but then if you can take a diverse background like mine and finally integrate it into a new whole? One never knows where it might lead but ultimately some sort of business and earnings is the goal. One of my first objectives is moving the flashcard system I’ve developed for my studies into the appropriate subdomains for further refinement.

While I would consider doing WordPress consulting really I’m just pursuing it as a personal interest.

I think it’s time to work on developing the blog portion of my site. I’ve begun to rebalance it using subdomains. So far I’ve only added one for my studies related activities. I’m using posts like flashcards for terms and concepts. Right now it’s mostly stock options and blockchain related by I might start doing photography. On photo though you also have the posting of images so it might make sense to put it under it’s own domain. Otherwise it would get lost in the flashcards and study notes. The edu stuff is open to the public but underdevelopment at edu.butturff.org.

It’s in conjunction with the other sites like OXZO.com and it’s subdomains like the one for crypto, Science Fiction Theory, and Wizards Library. It’s a part of the process I’ve used to get better at website development while working full time in the retail sales area. I’m sure if I had 8 hours a day to work on this stuff it would be a lot more advanced not to mention all the stuff you can learn in a team environment.

Still I think it’s worth doing and with this approach I can craft some of my own ideas into a tangible expression of thought. Not mention the visual aspect. I’ve also spent a lot of time experimenting with AI prompts the past couple years. Both in terms of writing and of creating images. It’s good at what it does but it’s not the same as just writing something out like this or taking a photograph. I don’t do deep fakes so on my sites you can tell when it’s a photograph or if it’s something else. The photographs are mine I took them including the clouds in this post. I shot that on the way to the Twin Cities to drive back a car for a local car dealer the other day.

I think I need to get better about captions and alt text but I will. It’s just part of a process. If I was a team there might be someone who specializes in some of it perhaps even me. Working independantly I just need to learn to integrate it into my workflow. Perhaps one day it will become more than a hobbyist thing and supplement my capital accumulation. That’s an overriding purpose in why I work and create NFT art using AI. To build capital both for retirement but also for investing and starting a proper business. It would be logical to start out small at managing websites built with WordPress.

Perhaps it’s a good thing I run multiple sites from a single server. I think if I offer it as a service though I’ll probably rent a little better service to host future sites on and I’ll try to make them simpler and interactive at the same time. Using user permissions. Not so much to control things as to help folks who aren’t versed in WordPress to avoid messing up their sites. While at the same time letting them do stuff that contributes to their business. Assuming it’s a business site etc. If it’s a hobby site then there’s probably a different track to follow.

At least at first it’s not going to be my main earning or income producing venture. I might have more flexibility that way. Say someone has a solid online sales idea. If they want a partner that can manage the website aspect? I might be game for that. If an online business took off it might be more lucrative than taking an upfront fee or being paid for specific tasks like a consultant or contractor. That all would need contracts I guess but not in the sense of a contractor. I might do a contractor approach to some high tech services though. Like say blockchain applications down the road.

Some brainstorming for how to approach contracting WordPress Development

• Focus on education and personal empowerment. Structure it as a package service where I interview prospective clients on their experience and ideas for a site.
• Offer a package starting at say $500 that includes the above combined with a set number of training sessions with an assigned text for reference. Say three days with extended sessions up to eight hours long. In depth exploration.
• Then if there are issues they need help on we can either charge by the incident or arrange some sort of system like a subscription service. Probably using Zoom or one of the remote in to your computer things. That is where I come in and take over the computer and work on it.
• Ancillary services. Like choosing cost effective options to manage a remote site run on WordPress. For most people I’d at least broach the idea of a Chromebook to keep costs down. Keeping costs down is a good theme overall for the project. That is you learn, you get site setup, you have options for the management process and expanding it, but all in a cost conscious way.
• Possibly offer the option in some cases to have the client come here and work on my systems with larger screens and stuff. To give them a more varied experience and demonstrate that with this type of website you are not anchored to one computer or location. You can do it anywhere including places like coffee shops.
• Look at other things that could be offered on a similar basis. Like setting up game streaming. Possibly even Only Fans streaming. It might be good to see how similar they are. In either case trying to leverage the photography background.
• Come up with ideas to use an existing domain to develop a site both for promotion and as a free reference sort to help past clients with trouble shooting. Probably using a social extension for WordPress. BunnyByte.me is original enough to work probably.
• Probably also include some of the original ideas from BunnyByte when I first got the domain. You’re basic computer maintenance tools and such. Offering secure disposal in the sense of maximizing privacy of personal data. Possibly also doing a side hustle of consulting on computer purchases for folks who want some input to make sure they get something that suites their needs. So they don’t get oversold or buy something overpriced. A possibility there is to also become an affiliate with a custom build operation. Except instead of making money on the sale I’ll use the affiliate commission as a discount option. Charging a flat upfront fee like $20. More as a spare time kind of thing. That fee can also cover a visit to the Rochester Best Buy store.